New FST season looks at life (real and virtual) with a side of laughter

After deciding to open Florida Studio Theatre’s new season with the Tony Award-winning musical “Monty Python’s Spamalot,” artistic director Richard Hopkins knew he had to go in different directions for the rest of the year.

“I wanted something very incisive and intelligent to follow it because ‘Spamalot’ is so intelligent, unintelligent, so Monty Python, wacky, silly,” said Hopkins.

His varied choices include the one-man play “Thurgood,” about the late Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, a chamber musical called “Daddy Long Legs,” about a young girl who gets help with her career from an anonymous man, and the new play “Two Point Oh,” which delves into virtual realities.

“Spamalot,” adapted by John Du Prez and original Monty Python member Eric Idle from the troupe’s cult film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” is about King Arthur’s comical efforts to put together the Knights of the Round Table and find the Grail.

It is one of the bigger productions FST has staged, though it will be done with a cast of 16, fewer than were seen in the original Broadway production, which won four Tony Awards, including best musical, best book and best score.

“I’ve always liked Monty Python and when they married it to Broadway, they brought out the best of Broadway musical comedy. It is just a great show,” Hopkins said.

The production, which runs Nov. 13-Jan. 4 in the Gompertz Theatre, will be directed by Bruce Jordan, a co-creator and director of “Sheer Madness” and staged the theater’s recent productions of “The Underpants” and “The Perfect Wedding.” Hopkins has called him a master at directing comedy.

“Thurgood,” written by George Stevens Jr., starred Laurence Fishburne on Broadway, a show which was filmed for HBO. The FST production will star Montae Russell, who played the part at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre.

“It is one of the best one-man shows ever,” Hopkins said. The play focuses on Marshall’s work in the civil rights movement and on the Supreme Court and his personal journey. In the play, he is telling his story to a group of students at Howard University.”

Actor Montae Russell plays the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in the one-man play "Thurgood" at Florida Studio Theatre in the 2013-14 season. PHOTO PROVIDED BY FST

“That’s what I love about it. It is so heroic. I love these stories we have about people from humble beginnings and overcoming these tremendous odds,” Hopkins said.

Russell played paramedic Dwight Zadro for 14 years on “ER.” Of his stage performance, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote that Russell “captures Marshall's irreverent bluster and devotion to justice.

“Daddy Long Legs” is a two-character musical about a young woman with dreams of a better life, and the help she gets from an anonymous donor. The audience learns about her adventures through detailed letters that Jerusha Abbott sends to her benefactor.

The show, based on a book by Jean Webster, is written by Tony-winning British director John Caird (“Nicholas Nickleby,” “Les Misérables”) and composer Paul Gordon.

“This is a really smart, literate piece of musical theater, like a chamber musical,” Hopkins said.

“The show brims with positive qualities, of which the best is its preservation of Webster’s instinctive feminism,” London’s The Guardian wrote last year. Kevin Earley and Ephie Aardema will star in the production.

The final show is the regional premiere of Jeffrey Jackson’s “Two Point Oh,” which was featured in FST’s recent new play festival. The play, which opens in New York this year, is about a software developer, a would-be Steve Jobs, who spends more time focused on his work than on his relationship with his wife. But some of his creations open new possibilities about how we can connect with friends, loved ones and business colleagues.

The theater also presents two original musical revues and one revised version of an earlier hit.

The season opens with “The Prima Donnettes,” which looks at the songs recorded by girl groups from the 1950s to the 1980s. It’s a period of tremendous change in musical styles, shifting from what Hopkins describes as “mindless bubblegum music that the women groups were doing, and by the 1960s, you see the whole women’s movement in song.

Singer/songwriter John Denver is among the artists featured in the FST Cabaret show "Poems, Prayers and Promises."

The season continues with “Poems, Prayers and Promises,” a sort of John Denver tribute, but with other singer/songwriter/storytellers thrown in, including Paul Simon, James Taylor, Peter, Paul and Mary, Cat Stevens and Harry Chapin.

The final show is a revised version of “Too Darn Hot,” a revue of songs by Cole Porter, which was last done about 10 years ago. Hopkins plans to cast a group of actor/musicians.

“I’m not sure how that is going to work yet, but I want to take this to a more sophisticated level, with more colors in the instrumentation,” Hopkins said.

“We can do that if we double up the singers and musicians and see what sounds we can create.”

Two of the three shows will be presented in the new Court Cabaret, which has been reconfigured a bit since it opened last season.

Jay Handelman

Jay Handelman is the theater and television critic for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, where he has worked since 1984. He also is President of the Foundation of the American Theatre Critics Association and a two-time past chairman of the association's executive committee. He can be reached by email or call (941) 361-4931. Follow him at @jayhandelman on Twitter. Make sure to "Like" Arts Sarasota on Facebook for news and reviews of the arts.

Last modified: September 22, 2013
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be published without permissions. Links are encouraged.